OK kids been kind of busy for the past few days. I pulled the jumble of lines and the rear load sensing valve...

I fixed the broken bolts in the 8.25 yoke. My friend Mark at work drilled the holes out and I went with 1/4" grade 8's and some lock nuts....

Then I spent the better part of two days wallowing around under the back end with the pressure washer wand and a multitude of every imaginable spray cleaners. About half way there...

Then, no less than 6 cans of Semi Gloss Black and 2 cans of spray undercoating later...

I moved the bracket for the rear brake hose forward of the 'X' member XJ style, and installed the ZJ parking brake cables I picked up. The left side is kind of tight and I'm probably going to have to replace it.

The shocks are Bilstein 5125's. The bump stops are Prothane 4.5" and I picked them up from Jegs.com. I used Jegs when I built my '68 Mustang years ago, and they always had excellent service. Speaking of excellent I ordered them Thursday night online and got them Friday afternoon...

My "high tech" $6.99 breather hose and the new brake line location...

Some random shots, ignore the rusty tail pipe, the exhaust will be replaced next.

Left side...

I'm going to pull the bed when I have it painted and I'll hit everything I couldn't get too then. Right side...

I really like the idea with the 1/4 bolts on your yoke. I assume you just drilled out the threads of the yoke?

You should shave the bottom of th 8.25 with a grinder so all that you see is the diff cover. There are some decent write ups on it out there.

What travel are the 5100s? 10"?

Regarding the proportioning valves. I ditched the MJ set up completly and I'm running the XJ valve with a single brake line to the rear axle, no load sensing set up. Just seems a lot simplier and less problematic....my .02

I really like the idea with the 1/4 bolts on your yoke. I assume you just drilled out the threads of the yoke?

Thanks for the compliment....The holes for the original bolts went all the way through the yoke even though only the first half was threaded. Mark drilled them out from the back to the front using the holes for a guide. I was going to use a u-bolt kit the grade 8's were his idea.

They're 11.9. The 10's would have been too short, on the ground with the weight on the rear suspension the distance between the mounting bolts is just under 24" the 10's fully extended are 25.93". These may be end up being a little long, but the big red bump stops will help with that.

Regarding the proportioning valves. I ditched the MJ set up completly and I'm running the XJ valve with a single brake line to the rear axle, no load sensing set up. Just seems a lot simplier and less problematic....my .02

I agree with you. I ditched the original line for the rear brakes and I'm just using the old bypass line. My first thought on a PV was to simply use the old MJ splitter, and block off the bypass port. There are a lot of opinions on this, but I really like the idea of a working PV.

My first choice was an XJ PV, I installed one from a '92 and couldn't get any pressure to the rear brakes.

I pulled the PV apart, and the black cup/o-ring had come apart and was apparently blocking pressure to the rear wheels. I reassembled the PV without the cup and I had pressure to the rear wheels. The thing is without the cup in place the PV functions basically as a splitter. Not what I wanted. I found this article ZJ Proportioning Valve and I picked up a ZJ PV from a 95 with 4 wheel discs. The article explains the needed minor mods. The end result...

We probably got that much snow in Albemarle, but we got a ton of sleet too and it just beat all the snow down. I took the TJ out and after I got out of my neighborhood, the roads were fine, so no fun to be had.

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Looks like you guys got a decent amount of snow! We got around 3-4" in North Charlotte......I REALLY wished my truck was ready so I could have gotten out and enjoyed the snow

I was thinking the same thing. We got 6 1/2 to 7 inches, the a mix of sleet and snow on top of it. I went to work early this morning. They plowed most of the streets and we had about 2-3 inches of compacted snow and ice on the roads. No problem for the XJ though, this is about 6:45 am...

But yeah my 4.0 has been hydrolocked twice, ran upside down for 7 seconds it still keeps coming back for more. its like that crazy ex-girlfriend that just wont quit..but unlike her, its a good thing haha